Copyright Infringement, You might want to Check your Terms of Service... Options

[EriaNight]

Alright it is pretty obvious to me and to most of the world that the content (graphics, blogs, about 75% of everything CB has uses stock photos of actors/actresses/singers/people/etc that the artists didn't take).

This would be all find and dandy and no one would care If a few of us (not mentioning names so people won't get pissed at us) hadn't realized a Few things in the CB submission process.

You guys promote artist right?
And art?

Here is a nice definition of what Copyright Infringment is from Wikipedia

Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it....In many jurisdictions, such as the United States, copyright infringement is a strict liability tort or crime.

I Know what CB says about it. For those who do NOT know what CB says about Copyright Infridgement....here it is

CreateBlog respects the intellectual property of others, and we ask our users to do the same. CreateBlog may, in appropriate circumstances and at its discretion, disable and/or terminate the accounts of users who may be repeat infringers. If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or your intellectual property rights have been otherwise violated, please provide CreateBlog's Copyright Agent the following information:

* an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright or other intellectual property interest;
* a description of the copyrighted work or other intellectual property that you claim has been infringed;
* a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the site;
* your address, telephone number, and email address;
* a statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
* a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your Notice is accurate and that you are the copyright or intellectual property owner or authorized to act on the copyright or intellectual property owner's behalf.

Please email claims of copyright or other intellectual property infringement to copyright at createblog dot com.

Now why am I mad? No one really cares if you aren't making money on any of the submissions. I wouldn't either. And you probably aren't. Only differences in the submission TERMSthere is are a few lines that strictly you just can't legally say.

For example...

By posting or submitting content to CreateBlog, you grant CreateBlog the right to use, reproduce, display, perform, adapt, modify, distribute, have distributed, and promote the content in any form, anywhere and for any purpose; and warrant and represent that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content and that public posting and use of your content by CreateBlog will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party.

If you contribute layouts, scripts, graphics, tutorials, creative suggestions, ideas, notes, drawings, or other information (collectively, the "Submissions"), the Submissions shall be deemed, and shall remain, the property of CreateBlog. None of the Submissions shall be subject to any obligation of confidence on the part of CreateBlog, and CreateBlog shall not be liable for any use or disclosure of any Submissions. Without limitation of the foregoing, CreateBlog shall exclusively own all now known or hereafter existing rights to the Submissions of every kind and nature throughout the universe and shall be entitled to unrestricted use of the Submissions for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to the provider of the Submissions.

Everything in Red you cannot claim without legally breaking the law. No Person who took the photographs of Rachel Bilson, Kiera Knightley, etc used in about half the layouts ever agreed to these terms! All the layouts with pictures of actors/actresses/etc taken by other people....CANNOT be used commercially no matter what you say! If you want to use the commercially, even if you ask the creator of the layout, that person cannot give you the permission.

I'm not trying to be picky or mean. And most of you will probably shout me down. But CB, you cannot do that. If you support a community of artists, then support the people who actually HAVE it as a JOB and don't say you have commerial rights that you definitely do not have. Sure the "creators of the layout" agreed to this, but you KNOW they probably couldn't really and legally agree to it. I know you don't want to be sued and i definitely couldn't sue you and wouldn't because i don't have the time nor really care, but It's wrong to claim that you have commerical rights over something you don't. I bet the reason the layouts aren't even used as "promotional" material is because you know you could get sued.

I'm not trying to be mean. In fact, I'd rather not be. And I understand as an admin on another forum and runner of a graphics site with 2 other CB members that it takes work and time. I just think you should change your terms a little so that your MEMBERS don't get in TROUBLE with the law??

[OneOfTheseDayz]

I would doubt that the goverment or anyone else would sue createblog... There are more important things in life than a site that GIVES AWAY FREE LAYOUTS for the betterment of mandkind.....

[Retrogressive]

I would doubt that the goverment or anyone else would sue createblog... There are more important things in life than a site that GIVES AWAY FREE LAYOUTS for the betterment of mandkind.....

2) "If I don't charge for it, it's not a violation."
False. Whether you charge can affect the damages awarded in court, but that's main difference under the law. It's still a violation if you give it away -- and there can still be serious damages if you hurt the commercial value of the property. There is an exception for personal copying of music, which is not a violation, though courts seem to have said that doesn't include widescale anonymous personal copying as Napster. If the work has no commercial value, the violation is mostly technical and is unlikely to result in legal action. Fair use determinations (see below) do sometimes depend on the involvement of money.

3) "If it's posted to Usenet it's in the public domain."
False. Nothing modern and creative is in the public domain anymore unless the owner explicitly puts it in the public domain(*). Explicitly, as in you have a note from the author/owner saying, "I grant this to the public domain." Those exact words or words very much like them.

Some argue that posting to Usenet implicitly grants permission to everybody to copy the posting within fairly wide bounds, and others feel that Usenet is an automatic store and forward network where all the thousands of copies made are done at the command (rather than the consent) of the poster. This is a matter of some debate, but even if the former is true (and in this writer's opinion we should all pray it isn't true) it simply would suggest posters are implicitly granting permissions "for the sort of copying one might expect when one posts to Usenet" and in no case is this a placement of material into the public domain. It is important to remember that when it comes to the law, computers never make copies, only human beings make copies. Computers are given commands, not permission. Only people can be given permission. Furthermore it is very difficult for an implicit licence to supersede an explicitly stated licence that the copier was aware of.

Note that all this assumes the poster had the right to post the item in the first place. If the poster didn't, then all the copies are pirated, and no implied licence or theoretical reduction of the copyright can take place.

(*) Copyrights can expire after a long time, putting something into the public domain, and there are some fine points on this issue regarding older copyright law versions. However, none of this applies to material from the modern era, such as net postings.

Note that granting something to the public domain is a complete abandonment of all rights. You can't make something "PD for non-commercial use." If your work is PD, other people can even modify one byte and put their name on it.

4) "My posting was just fair use!"
See other notes on fair use for a detailed answer, but bear the following in mind:

The "fair use" exemption to (U.S.) copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's vital so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to appropriate other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. Are you reproducing an article from the New York Times because you needed to in order to criticise the quality of the New York Times, or because you couldn't find time to write your own story, or didn't want your readers to have to register at the New York Times web site? The first is probably fair use, the others probably aren't.

Fair use is generally a short excerpt and almost always attributed. (One should not use much more of the work than is needed to make the commentary.) It should not harm the commercial value of the work -- in the sense of people no longer needing to buy it (which is another reason why reproduction of the entire work is a problem.) Famously, copying just 300 words from Gerald Ford's 200,000 word memoir for a magazine article was ruled as not fair use, in spite of it being very newsworthy, because it was the most important 300 words -- why he pardoned Nixon.

Note that most inclusion of text in followups and replies is for commentary, and it doesn't damage the commercial value of the original posting (if it has any) and as such it is almost surely fair use. Fair use isn't an exact doctrine, though. The court decides if the right to comment overrides the copyright on an individual basis in each case. There have been cases that go beyond the bounds of what I say above, but in general they don't apply to the typical net misclaim of fair use.

The "fair use" concept varies from country to country, and has different names (such as "fair dealing" in Canada) and other limitations outside the USA.

Facts and ideas can't be copyrighted, but their expression and structure can. You can always write the facts in your own wordsthough

See the DMCA alert for recent changes in the law.

9) "It doesn't hurt anybody -- in fact it's free advertising."
It's up to the owner to decide if they want the free ads or not. If they want them, they will be sure to contact you. Don't rationalize whether it hurts the owner or not, ask them. Usually that's not too hard to do. Time past, ClariNet published the very funny Dave Barry column to a large and appreciative Usenet audience for a fee, but some person didn't ask, and forwarded it to a mailing list, got caught, and the newspaper chain that employs Dave Barry pulled the column from the net, pissing off everybody who enjoyed it. Even if you can't think of how the author or owner gets hurt, think about the fact that piracy on the net hurts everybody who wants a chance to use this wonderful new technology to do more than read other people's flamewars.

"Take that and rewind it back." would be a funny thing to say here, but I won't.

Resource: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html